The social network said an internal
investigation had found no indication passwords were stolen or misused by
insiders.
However, it still urged all
users to consider changing their passwords “out of an abundance of caution”.
Twitter did not say how many
passwords were affected.
It is understood the number
was “substantial” and that they were exposed for “several months”.
Twitter discovered the bug a
few weeks ago and has reported it to some regulators, an insider told Reuters.
The glitch was related to its
use of “hashing”, which masks passwords as users enters them by replacing them
with numbers and letters, according to its blog.
A bug caused the passwords to
be stored on an internal computer log before the hashing process was completed.
“We are very sorry this
happened,” Twitter said on its blog.
As well as changing
passwords, users have been advised to turn on two-factor authentication service
to help stop accounts being hacked.
Twitter’s chief technology
officer Parag Agrawal initially said the company did not have to reveal the
information but believed it was the “right thing to do” – before correcting his
“mistake”.
Source: BBC
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